QT Fest Returns

QT Fest Returns

About three months after I moved to Austin, Quentin Tarantino hosted his second “QT Fest” at the Dobie Theater. It was a bizarre series of nights, and my first real exposure to the cult-film environment I had recently moved to… I did my best to attend every consecutive QT Fest in the years that followed, when it moved to the Alamo Drafthouse downtown.

While he was off making Kill Bill 1 & 2 and directing the season finale of CSI, there hasn’t been much time (but a lot of demand) for another QT Fest. All of that ends next month, as Tarantino returns for his sixth week-long Austin celebration of cinema. It will happen September 9-17 (I’ll have to miss some of it for Toronto). It’s a one-of-a-kind event, something Tarantino doesn’t do for pretty much any other city. But, for one week, passholders get a chance to feel like they’re in QT’s film geek inner circle. It’s less like a conventional festival, and more just a week of vintage films curated by the Oscar winner.

What are the films? No one knows yet… but it’s likely to be a bunch of classic grindhouse titles. Tarantino has a tendency of programming his fests with a tone similar to whatever he’s working on at the moment. For example, the last fest was before Kill Bill, so the content was primarily kung-fu classics and revenge epics. And Tarantino’s upcoming feature will be Grindhouse, co-directed by Robert Rodriguez. They begin production shortly after QT-Six, so attendees should keep an eye for clues to what’s inspiring the new film.